2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan

[Brittain33]

That’s fine, Apple was going to be the poster child for Republican disenchantment with commissions for the decade if it passed.

[Brittain33]

It's looking like these midwestern states will be democracies heading into 2022: MI, MN, IA, OH (pending Supreme Court ruling)
These states will not be functioning democracies: IL, IN, WI

IA and OH assume that Republicans have an overwhelming advantage but will win based on fair maps.

This is an improvement with MI and OH potentially both upgrading their degree of democratic government over 2021. 

[Brittain33]

It's looking like these midwestern states will be democracies heading into 2022: MI, MN, IA, OH (pending Supreme Court ruling)
These states will not be functioning democracies: IL, IN, WI

IA and OH assume that Republicans have an overwhelming advantage but will win based on fair maps.

How exactly is Michigan a Democracy but Indiana not?

Michigan splits East Lansing and Lansing in the senate and Indiana splits West and Lafayette in the senate. If you are going to complain about Indiana 05, the GR Muskegon seat is pretty damn bad as well.

The Indiana state house map is also pretty damn good on COI's from what Ive seen athough the state senate did keep the gerrymander.
Michigan has some of the worst legislative maps in the entire midwest.

Michigan drew a map where if Republicans win a majority of the vote, they're probably winning the legislature, and vice versa for the Dems. That's what I mean by a functioning democracy. In Wisconsin, Democrats can win majority after majority of voters and still never get close to government.

[Brittain33]

Why should Indiana Republicans be forced to draw a Democratic gerrymander before they can be called a Democracy?

Why did they need to draw a Republican gerrymander given that they're easily the majority party in the state any way?

[Brittain33]

What exactly is fair about Biden winning 55% of senate seats for partisan fairness? And yes I don't see anything wrong with that # but the Ann Arbor area is an explicit gerrymander so there was no reason to draw it like that.

What's unfair about it? Biden won 51%, and there are only 38 Senators, so that's quite close. If Biden won one fewer seat, you'd be an exact match.

[Brittain33]

What exactly is fair about Biden winning 55% of senate seats for partisan fairness? And yes I don't see anything wrong with that # but the Ann Arbor area is an explicit gerrymander so there was no reason to draw it like that.

What's unfair about it? Biden won 51%, and there are only 38 Senators, so that's quite close. If Biden won one fewer seat, you'd be an exact match.

So why does the Ann Arbor or Lansing crack need to be done? Its clearly a gerrymander and there's no other justification other than partisan fairness but it doesn't even fill that goal. If you are going to attack Indiana as a non functioning Democracy than so is Michigan. I don't have a problem with Biden getting 55% of seats if it was natural, I have a issue with it being done through an independent commission and people trying to claim its a fair map.

If what you are saying is that 1 additional crack more than necessary was done in the State Senate than if you wanted to match exactly to the Biden/Trump results, ok, it sounds like you've made that case.

What were the Trump/Clinton numbers on the new Senate map, BTW?

[Brittain33]

What exactly is fair about Biden winning 55% of senate seats for partisan fairness? And yes I don't see anything wrong with that # but the Ann Arbor area is an explicit gerrymander so there was no reason to draw it like that.

What's unfair about it? Biden won 51%, and there are only 38 Senators, so that's quite close. If Biden won one fewer seat, you'd be an exact match.

In a first past the post system, fairness shouldn't be measured by proportionality in results, because in theory the system is about representing distinct geographical communities rather than the combined preferences of all voters.

(I suspect we agree that that's pretty dumb--PR is obviously a better system--but if we are choosing to do FPTP we should actually do it in a way which is most sensible, rather than attempting a proportional map which likely won't stay that way all decade given trends and swings).

You are getting at the heart of this issue here, and I think a problem is that people never chose the FPTP system because it's something we inherited from a long time ago before proportional systems were feasible. And we've seen in recent years how either independently or deliberately, it's used to disenfranchise minorities. When used in conjunction with entrenched racial segregation (WI), it's not far off what we had in the South before the 1960s.

[Brittain33]

Lfromnj is totally right--correcting for geographic concentration is still disgusting gerrymandering.

I would argue that drawing maps to correct for undemocratic results because of residential patterns is not the same, not "disgusting", like drawing maps to exacerbate undemocratic results.

[Brittain33]

Lfromnj is totally right--correcting for geographic concentration is still disgusting gerrymandering.

I would argue that drawing maps to correct for undemocratic results because of residential patterns is not the same, not "disgusting", like drawing maps to exacerbate undemocratic results.

The problem is is that FPTP doesn't actually solve that problem. A map which neatly approximates today's partisan divide has no guarantee of continuing to do so throughout the decade, and can actually end up acting as a partisan gerrymander.

Oh, I agree. It's a hack at best. But a hack with a better chance of producing democratic results than a map drawn by one party.

[Brittain33]

Is your preference state by state?...

I do think her argument is about state legislatures for state government, not Congress. There are a number of threads here but the context is the Michigan State Senate map. Not that Congress is "fixed" but it's a different problem with different solutions.  

[Brittain33]

What exactly is fair about Biden winning 55% of senate seats for partisan fairness? And yes I don't see anything wrong with that # but the Ann Arbor area is an explicit gerrymander so there was no reason to draw it like that.

lfromnj, I just noticed that the State House map has more Trump seats than Biden seats, even though Trump lost the state. Were you aware of this and if so, why didn't you mention it when decrying how unfair the Senate map was? It seems to be that two maps that are both quite close to parity, but biased in different directions, would cancel each other out in an elegant way. It would mean that any election that is close to 50-50 is likely to result in a split legislature and you need to get (pulling a random number) 53% or more to get unified government.

[Brittain33]

I do think it's a bit odd that they've unnecessarily split Detroit between multiple congressional districts.

I think there’s a psychological barrier to reducing Detroit to 1 representative, plus it would probably result in an 75% AA district (depending on what else is added) which would be an illegal pack.